Alex Dordoy is a painter and sculptor who explores ideas of artificiality, nostalgia, and the role of technology in image-making. The unearthly scenes depicted in Dordoy’s paintings reference Art Nouveau advertisements and designs, awakening the symbolic potential of their imagery. The artist edits and manipulates his source imagery using Photoshop and paints the resulting compositions, returning these representations to the physical realm. Through editing and reconfiguration, the images are stripped of their previous meaning and re-contextualized as vivid moments preserved before our eyes. Some of their original aura of romanticism and nostalgia persists, contrasted by the painter’s precise, graphic rendering.
Dordoy often paints multiple versions of the same image in varying bright hues, suggesting the passing of time by means of an artificial light source. While the presence of civilization is apparent in many of his works, the figure is distinctly absent. The conspicuous lack of a protagonist or empathetic subject in Dordoy’s works implicates the viewer as a participant.
Alex Dordoy (b. 1985 in Newcastle, UK) lives and works in London (UK). He received his BFA from the Glasgow School of Art (UK) in 2007 and completed the residency program at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (NL) in 2009. Recent solo exhibitions include: Answering Machine, GRIMM, London (UK); Monster, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) in 2022; The Weather Channel, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (UK) in 2021; Ruin is Rune, GRIMM, New York, NY (US) in 2020; Summers’ Ego, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) in 2018; The Moss is Dreaming, curated by Tom Morton, Blain|Southern, London (UK); From Svalbard Soil, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (UK) in 2017; Model T, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (UK) in 2015; Sleepwalker, De Ateliers Debut Series, Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); and Persitencebeatsresistance, Inverleith House, Edinburgh (UK) in 2014. Dordoy’s work can be found in many private collections, as well as the collections of AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); The David and Indrė Roberts Collection, London (UK); THE EKARD COLLECTION; KRC Art Collection, Voorschoten (NL); Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh (UK); Start Museum, Shanghai (CN); Zabludowicz Collection, London (UK) among others.